Virgin Trains’ amazing speeded up journey footage

Virgin Trains has released some special driver's eye view footage to mark its 20th anniversary.

Published:15:21Wednesday 02 August 2017

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Virgin Trains is inviting customers to experience travel between Scotland and London in just eight minutes.

To celebrate its 20th anniversary, the intercity operator has released speeded-up footage showing the incredible sights viewed from the drivers’ cabs on some of its most scenic routes.

On the west coast route between Glasgow and London, these include the dramatic Cumbrian hills and Beattock Summit in Scotland. On the east coast, the Edinburgh-London journey covers the beautiful border town of Berwick-upon-Tweed and famous bridges spanning the Tyne between Newcastle and Gateshead.

Over the past two decades, Virgin has decreased intercity journey times on the west coast route, where it accelerated the Glasgow-London journey time from more than five hours to 4hrs 29mins following introduction of its Virgin High Frequency timetable in 2009.

The company took over the east coast route in 2015 and is now planning to bring regular Edinburgh-London journey times to around four hours, every hour, following introduction of its new fleet of state-of-the-art Azuma trains.

Danny Gonzalez, marketing director for the east coast and former marketing director on the west coast route, said: “Train travel in Britain offers some stunning sights and we’d defy anyone to enjoy the same experience when stuck in motorway traffic or peeking through the tiny windows of a plane.

“We’re lucky enough to operate two of the most iconic, famous routes in the country. We’d encourage everyone to take the time to see these for themselves - but if you’ve only got a few minutes to spare, these videos offer a beautiful introduction.”

Videos showing the eight-minute Glasgow to London and Edinburgh to London journeys can be viewed on YouTube at https://youtu.be/0doe0ArW2VM and https://youtu.be/jvAaxnT6K5E or the full videos can be downloaded at https://virgintrains.box.com/s/3js3mqweuoq1mphl1egkdozee60rcsxl.

Passengers who want to see the entire journey in real-time, can do so by loggin on to BEAM, Virgin Trains’ revolutionary onboard entertainment service.